The present invention relates to the field of protective equipment for use in sporting activities. More particularly the invention relates to protective sporting gloves such as those used for playing hockey, lacrosse, and other similar sporting activities.
Various protective sporting gloves have been developed over the years for hockey, lacrosse, and other similar sporting activities requiring strong protection against forceful impact with hard objects such as hockey puck or lacrosse ball or from hockey sticks or skates, or from lacrosse sticks of other players. These gloves must offer substantial protection to the wearer""s hand and wrist while offering the best possible degree of flexibility for the wearer""s fingers for holding and handling a stick and executing rapid and precise maneuvers of the stick during play. Protective sporting gloves for such sports are therefore heavily padded to provide the required protection and this padding often impairs the freedom of movement of the hand.
In general, the exterior surface of a protective glove is heavily padded while the interior surface in contact with the stick is unpadded and made of supple material such as leather or synthetic material. Finger sheaths are especially well padded on their exterior surface while the thumb portion of the glove is made of a rigid exterior shell portion which covers a supple thumb sheath extending under the thumb shell portion, itself covered with a layer of fabric material. The front portion of the thumb sheath is separate from the thumb shell and is loosely connected to the front end of the thumb shell. The separation of the two thumb elements allows a limited degree of mobility to the thumb but also restricts its movement. The rigid thumb shell portion is necessary, as the thumb is particularly vulnerable to impact and blows especially for the hand holding the middle portion of a hockey stick. The thumb portion in this case faces forward of the player and rests upon the upper edge of the stick which again is more exposed. Therefore, the thumb must have increased protection on the upper surface as well as on both sides, which is provided by a rigid shell portion. Other fingers have their top surface padded while their sides are unprotected, except for the index finger and the auricular finger where their exterior sides are also partially padded for protection. The rigid shell structure of the thumb portion of a typical protective glove provides adequate protection but restricts the freedom of movement of the thumb.
Thus, there is a need for a protective sporting glove providing increased freedom of movement of the thumb for better stick handling while affording good protection of the thumb against impact.
It is thus an object of the invention to provide a protective sporting glove adapted to provide increased freedom of movement of the thumb for better stick handling while affording good protection of the thumb against impact.
As embodied and broadly described herein, the invention provides a protective sporting glove comprising:
a hand receiving portion and a cuff portion cooperating to protect the entire hand of the wearer, the wrist, the thumb and the four fingers; the hand receiving portion having a palm side and a dorsal side; the palm side being made of soft flexible material and the dorsal side comprising a padded surface. The hand receiving portion includes finger sheath means for receiving and enclosing the four fingers of a hand placed in the glove; the finger sheath means extending from an area proximate the base of the four fingers to the end of the fingers; each of the finger sheath means comprising an elongated protective padding element extending along the dorsal side of the finger sheath means.
The hand receiving portion further includes a thumb receiving portion for receiving and enclosing the wearer""s thumb; the thumb receiving portion encloses the thumb from an area proximate the base of the thumb to the tip of the thumb; the thumb receiving portion comprises a rigid thumb shell covering the dorsal side of the thumb receiving portion; the rigid thumb shell having a first shell portion and a second shell portion hinged together in the vicinity of the articulation between the distal phalanx and the middle phalanx of the thumb thereby allowing flexion of the second shell portion with relation to the first shell portion.
Advantageously, the first and second shell portion of the rigid thumb shell comprise an outer lip extending along the outer edge of the first and second portion, the outer lip being sewn to the soft flexible material making up the palm side of the thumb sheath. The first and second shell portion are hinged together at their respective outer edges by means of the outer lip being sewn to the palm side of the thumb sheath.
Preferably, the first and second shell portion of the rigid thumb shell comprise a stopping means adapted to prevent flexion of the second shell portion beyond a predetermined point. In a specific example of implementation, the stopping means comprise a first projection adapted for insertion within a slot and capable of movement therein. The first projection is securely retained within the slot via a second projection which extends laterally therefrom. More specifically, the first and second projections are associated with either one of the first or second shell portions while the slot is associated with the other remaining shell portion.
In a preferred embodiment, the protective glove further comprises an adjustable cuff portion connected to the hand receiving portion and extending over the wrist area. The cuff portion has a plurality of padded elements positioned around at least a portion of the circumference of the cuff portion and defining a peripheral forearm protector, each padded element partially overlapping an adjacent padded element. Preferably, a strap is used to adjust the diameter of the cuff portion. In a further preferred embodiment of protective glove, one of the padded elements is adjustable in length.
As embodied and broadly described herein, the invention provides a hockey glove comprising:
a hand receiving portion and a cuff portion cooperating to protect the entire hand of the wearer, the wrist, the thumb and the four fingers; the hand receiving portion having a palm side and a dorsal side; the palm side being made of soft flexible material and the dorsal side comprising a padded surface. The hand receiving portion includes finger sheath means for receiving and enclosing the four fingers of a hand placed in the hockey glove; the finger sheath means extending from an area proximate the base of the four fingers to the end of the fingers. Each of the finger sheath means comprises an elongated protective padding element extending along the dorsal side of the finger sheath means. The hand receiving portion further includes a thumb receiving portion for receiving and enclosing the wearer""s thumb; the thumb receiving portion enclosing the thumb from an area proximate the base of the thumb to the tip of the thumb; the thumb receiving portion comprises a rigid thumb shell covering the dorsal side of the thumb receiving portion; the rigid thumb shell having two related shell portions, a first shell portion extending from the base of the wearer""s thumb to the middle portion of the wearer""s thumb and a second shell portion extending from the middle of the wearer""s thumb to the tip of the wearer""s thumb wherein the second shell portion is adapted to flex relative to the first shell portion.
Other objects and features of the invention will become apparent by reference to the following description and the drawings.